Free Download iPhone Games: Yahtzee Adventure

Yahtzee! I remember saying those words while playing Challenge Yahtzee with my family while growing up. So I saw Yahtzee Adventure in the App Store, and decided to give it a try.

When you start up the program, you are presented with the option of enabling or disabling sound within the program. Let me just say, I love this approach, and wish more designers would use it in their games or apps. I love being able to disable sounds before the program actually starts – it is much easier than trying to turn down the volume, mute the phone, or try to find some configuration switch within the game itself.

Anyway, when you get to the first screen, you are presented with a menu of options: adventure, play now, custom play, extras, options, more games, help, and exit. This is the first application I recall seeing on the iPhone that has an actual “exit” option (instead of just hitting the home button) – I don’t really know if it serves a purpose or not.

The play now is for a quick, single player game of Yahtzee. I won’t go into detail here, but will just say that unlike some games, playing Yahtzee by yourself can be just as much fun as against somebody, as you can try ot beat your various high scores.

The “extras” button will let you look at your various awards (given in adventure mode), biographies of the characters you are playing against, the results of various challenges (from both adventure mode and regular game mode), and you overall statistics (highest score, % of games won, etc).

The “more games” button is just for an advertisement of other games. Unfortunately, you don’t get any demos of those games included (that would be great advertising) or any discount for buying them via the advertisement (again, great advertising).

Options lets you change the various options – music, sound, tutorial, shake to roll the dice, etc. And help mode is just that – helps you with the game.

So that leaves Adventure Mode and Cuustom Play. I will start with Adventure Mode first.

In Adventure mode, you go through various levels, competing against former students of the “sensei” who is teaching you how to play Yahtzee. Presumably, each student has a different style of play (although I couldn’t really recognize any difference) so you need to “learn” how to compete against each style. I don’t really know how effective it was – I never really changed my style of play, and I sometimes won, I sometimes lost (maybe I would have won more if I adapted, who knows). Eventually, you need to beat the sensei himself. After you beat each level, you are awarded a set of dice to represent that challenge you defeated. Once you have beaten the entire adventure mode (which can happen relatively quickly) you can go back and play any of the students at any time.

In custom play mode, you can choose the type of game you want to play (classic, duplicate, battle, or rainbow). I am not going to go into the differences of those game types, but they all have their fun points. You can choose the number of opponents, and if you are playing against the iPhone characters, you can choose them as well.

The game play is very straight-forward. The one problem I had was occasionally I would tap an area of the field to reroll the dice, when I really was trying to choose the dice to keep. But beyond that, there were no real problem wit hthe gameplay or the interface. It is a very polished game overall.

While you can play multiplayer, you are playing on the same iPhone. It would be nice to have some sort of wifi or networked multiplayer option (or even playing people over the web) but I am glad to see that there is some sort of option to play against someone. While playing yourself or the characters is fun, part of the fun is playing against someone.

Pros: Fun game modes, good interface

Cons: Nothing aside from some minor issues about multiplayer mode

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Free Download iPhone Games: Super Monkey Ball

When SEGA announced at the iPhone SDK event that they were bringing Super Monkey Ball to the iPhone, I almost leapt off my chair with excitement, and when they then showed how similar in look and play it was with the console iterations, well, I almost fainted. In fact that presentation got everyone talking about how the iPhone could be, and will be a great platform for games.
I absolutely love the Super Monkey Ball (SMB) games, I mean what’s not to love about monkeys in balls?

SEGA first released SMB in Japan, in 2000, as an upright arcade cabinet called Monkey Ball (which featured a crazy banana-styled joystick!!). Later and more popular was it’s release on the Nintendo Gamecube as a launch title in 2001. It was a great fit for Ninty’s console and proved very popular, it has appeared on all of Nintendo’s recent consoles, such as the DS and Wii, and even appeared on PS2 and Xbox as Super Monkey Ball Deluxe).

The gameplay is a bit like marble madness. You manoeuvre your ball encased monkey around increasingly challenging courses until you reach the goal at the end, all under the pressure of a count-down style time limit. Later levels feature varying themes and landscapes as well as trickier routes and obstacles. You can play as four different monkeys; AiAi, MeeMee, Baby and GonGon. As well as the main game, the console versions included mini-games such as Monkey Billiards, Monkey Fight (a favourite of mine!), Monkey Target and Monkey Golf.

So, how does the iPhone version fair. Well, pretty successfully! It borrows its main gameplay mechanic from the recent Wii version, using motion control. My only control gripe being that there is no current option to calibrate the default rest position, so you are forced to play the game flat which can get a bit uncomfortable over time. The control of the ball is also a little on the sensitive side, so there might be a steep learning curve for beginners. I, however, like the challenge!

The graphics are great and really pop on the iPhone, featuring that great SEGA look they give all their games. The 3D engine works well and the framerate is pretty solid. However, I would have liked to see full 3D monkes in their balls instead of the 2D sprites.

The game features 110 stages over five worlds, which are further split over easy and hard modes. You unlock a new world after completing the previous ones on easy and hard. I would have liked to see the return of the mini games, and I’m a bit puzzled as to why SEGA left them out. Lets hope the next version of the game at least features Monkey Fight, or Monkey Target!

Presentation & Graphics: 9

Features the usual polished and arcady visuals from SEGA. Full 3D monkey’s next time please!

Sound: 8

Cheesy but fitting music, may begin to grate. But overall good sound work overall.

Gameplay: 8

Get the monkey to the goal. Simple, addictive and challenging all at the same time. A great recipe for an iPhone game. Controls work well, but may be oversensitive for some, and a calibrate screen would be a welcome addition.

Game life: 6

If you can complete the game, which I doubt! You may find enjoyment from revisiting the levels for faster times and points. But eventually it will get repetitive. The inclusion of the original mini games would have made this game great!

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(Size: 36.27MB)

Free Download iPhone Games: Galcon

Galcon is real time strategy game which challenges players to wage interplanetary warfare against their iPhone. Galcon was developed by Phil Hassey and originally appeared on Windows, MacOSX and Linux desktops before finally making its way to the iTunes App Store. The iPhone version of the game comes with five different game modes each of which can be played on ten different difficultly levels. Galcon also features sound effects, resume support, several map layouts and a text driven help screen.

Although Galcon is a real time strategy game, it lacks base building and resource farming. Personally, I couldn’t be happier to find a RTS game that lets players get right too the good stuff, troop management and combat. The troops in Galcon are tiny triangle looking spaceships which can be directed to attack enemy planets or defend planets already under your control.

To attack an enemy or neutral planet players simply tap one or more of their own planets and drag (or tap) their finger to the planet they wish to attack. The numbers on each planet represent the numbers of ships currently defending the planet. To take over a planet you must attack it with more ships than are currently defending it. Before attacking you can set what percentage of ships from each of your tapped planets you want to send on the invasion. Picking 100% has a better chance of overwhelming the enemy planet but only leaves a single defender on the attacking planet.

To defend one of your planets you can simply leave it alone and let it produce more ships, something whose rate is determined by planet size, or you can move ships from planet to planet.

I love Galcon. It’s one mad tapper of an iPhone game. Galcon doesn’t get bogged down with tons of strategy and management, instead it puts you into combat right away. In Galcon, you must think to win, but if you think to long you will most definitely lose. On most levels of play it’s pretty easy to win by zerging the enemy’s starting planet and whatever planet they attacked second. One more difficult settings a modified zerging strategy can usually be employed to win quickly. No matter which strategy you use, in Galcon, you must work to quickly control the larger planets.

Galcon features five different modes of game play include, Classic, Stealth Vacuum, Beast and 3-Way. Classic mode pits you against one other iPhone controlled enemy each of you starting with a single planet in control. Stealth mode is similar to Classic except you cannot see the enemy’s ships. In Vacuum mode there are no iPhone controlled enemies, instead you must take over all nuetral planets before a time limit expires. Beast mode puts you in control of a few large planets while the enemy player has almost all the little planets under their controls. The 3-Way mode is just like classic except you face off against two other iPhone controlled enemies. My favorite modes were beast and 3-Way.

Galcon’s blend of quick action and strategic depth give it a ton of replay value. It’s one of those games that has enough rules to work, but enough freedom to encourage players to try different things. I found after playing Galcon for a bit that I started creating my own objectives. I found it especially fun to leave my enemies with a few planets in their control while I focused on building a central fleet of 10,000 or more ships. Once I reached that level I let the enemy take over as many planets as it could before ultimately unleashing waves of attacks.

While I really love Galcon, I found myself wishing their was a bit more to the game. The lack of Campaign, Career and Multiplayer modes was a really surprising omission from the game. It would’ve been fantastic to have a progressive set of missions to play through. Galcon could also stand some improvements to the artificial intelligence. The computer controlled player does not defend well against a specific type of zerging strategy which can make the game pretty formulaic on certain map layouts at harder levels. Additionally, there were times when I wished Galcon had just a few more in game features. Having certain planets gives bonuses to the player who controls them could be interesting as would planets that players must not loose control of. There are also no statistics in Galcon which means I can’t show off my quickest victory, most massive army, least amount of units lost and so on. I also found controlling the attack percentages a little cumbersome. The last problem I have with Galcon is the price. Currently, the game costs $9.99 from the iTunes App Store which feels about $4.99 to high considering the lack or progressive game modes.

Galcon is a great iPhone strategy game. While the game’s price and lack of campaign features need addressing, there is enough depth, game play and strategy to keep most people happy for quite a while.

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